DIY Carnival Queen: Part I Make Your Own Headdress

Planning a trip to Tenerife’s Santa Cruz Carnival next year? Well no carnival experience is complete without a costume! Follow our tips to create your very own sparkly carnival headdress and you’ll be rivalling the carnival queen herself.

Step 1: Choose a Design

First of all you need a design. You’re spoilt for choice when it comes to carnival; headdresses come in all shapes and sizes. Choose from abstract designs, birds like peacocks or flamingos, glittering fish, tropical fruit, flowers, plants and more for the centrepiece. To get some inspiration, check out some carnival pictures on the internet or get ideas from fashion magazines. After you’ve decided, draw your design on paper so you have a plan to work from.

Step 2: Make your Frame

Most carnival headdresses start with a wire frame; this is basically the skeleton of the design. You can buy premade wire frames on the internet or if you’re going full DIY make one yourself. All you need is some wire coat hangers, pliers, wire cutters and a bit of patience!

Step 3: Add Panels

Next you’ll need to add some panels to the wire. You can do this with mesh, felt, or any thick material that will be sturdy enough to hold beads, feathers and all the other exciting bits you’re going to add later.

Cut the material into the right shape then use your hot glue gun to attach it to the frame. Make sure you leave it to dry fully before moving onto the next stage.

Step 4: Add Feature Pieces

You’ll want a mixture of tall and short pieces to give the headdress depth and height. Any taller bits like feathers, flowers, or sparkly card pieces will need to be added first. Glue or sew these taller pieces to the panels following your design, then wait for them to dry.

Step 5: Add Detail

After you’ve sewn or glued on the larger pieces of your headdress now comes the fun part! If you want to paint any detail on, now is the time to do so. You can use glittery paints or nail varnish to add some sparkle to your design.

When your painting is dry, add any of the smaller beads, crystals, or sequins to create the final detail. You might want to use tweezers on some of the smallest pieces for more precise application. When you’ve finished, wait for your creation to dry for at least a day, you don’t want it to fall apart before you’ve even worn it!

Step 6: Wear it!

Get yourself to Tenerife for the Santa Cruz Carnival in February to show off your beautiful DIY headdress and dance the night away in style.

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Ellie Pierpoint is a freelance writer and editor from Brighton, UK. She writes blog posts and copy for the travel, fashion and lifestyle sectors and still regularly brings up her linguistics degree at dinner parties. When she’s not writing she can be found reading, doing yoga or walking her cat.
You can visit her at www.elliepierpoint.com.